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Kotaku looks into 11 long overdue and/or failed kickstarters

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D

DeathoftheEndless

Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
I remember hearing about Stomping Land last year; sounded pretty cool. Even Stompokapow thought there was a low chance for failure on that project last year. Weird.
 
V

vinnygambini

Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
Nirolak said:
On Kickstarter it's similar to being a publisher in that if a project fails, you're left holding the bill and nothing to show for it.

It's a solid object lesson in why publishers are cautious even with good sounding ideas.
Click to expand...

Goodness gracious. It seems those who fund the game are on the losing hand of this venture more than anything.

Thanks Patryn too.
 
B

Bebpo

Banned
Glad to see LA Gamespace on here. It was the one and only Kickstarter I ever donated more than $100
$300 ;_;
to because it seemed perfectly doable and the people doing it were backed by industry folks saying they were legit and the idea of weekly rotating lectures/panels like you'd get at GDC by creators and members of the game industry sounded fascinating.

So yeah, this one is pretty annoying.


Luckily it's the only kickstarter I've backed that's gone AWOL. But seriously, how does it take so long to set up a warehouse? :\
 
I

Instro

Member
Mandelbo said:
What about Radio the Universe? Didn't that generate quite a bit of buzz when the kickstarter first went up? It's been almost two years since it was funded now and the creator's tumblr hasn't been updated since the kickstarter was initially started.
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He last updated on KS at the end of December with some videos and only seems to update every few months. Seems to be ok.

I mentioned in another thread but echoes of eternea seems to be legit dead. Like they completely shut down their website, the guy closed his Facebook, and the KS hasn't been updated in months. 50k down the drain.
 
T

tokkun

Member
Interesting how many of these projects originally promised delivery dates that were 6 months or less out from the funding date. You would think that a project that is promising to deliver in 3 months would already be close to completion or have a pretty clear roadmap.
 
S

Sesto

Banned
disgusting.
Thanks god I've newer backed anything because some kickstarters tend to promise you even the moon
 
P

Patryn

Member
BumRush said:
This is going to be a DUMB question, but what happens to the $ when a $500K funded project is "canceled"??
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Kickstarter takes a 10 percent cut off the top. The rest is murky. Many projects aren't attempting to be malicious so they could have honestly spent all the funds in an attempt to deliver on the project but come up short in actually achieving the game.

Some are a scam, such as Confederate Express, so odds are the money went into the project creators' pockets.
 
J

JoeyJungle

Banned
Still waiting for fort90zine 4. I haven't really bitched about it because I know it's one dude and making this stuff takes time and the guy writing it has had some shit happen and his life and stuff. But mean it was funded on April 27, 2011, and the last update was in 2013. I'm sure it's gonna be finished any day now, but I wouldn't mind an update about it.

#believe
 
J

JMDSO

Unconfirmed Member
I can't believe A Hat in Time is almost 2 years old and it hasn't even hit beta yet.

At least they're still updating people.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
You know what gets me about these overly ambitious kickstarter scams? How can these people raise like $500k and get away with nothing, meanwhile I start a gofundme page to send me to GDC and I raise $10, lmao.

I just don't get how some of these projects pull in so much money on claims they obviously can't back or produce. It's nuts. I wish I had some of that money, haha.
 
B

Broadbandito

Member
Saw that the OP updated the post about H-Hour. Thought I would share the 2 screens they released from the alpha. Beta to follow in March/April

quicklook_map.jpg

quicklook_terrorist.jpg
 
J

JMDSO

Unconfirmed Member
Krejlooc said:
You know what gets me about these overly ambitious kickstarter scams? How can these people raise like $500k and get away with nothing, meanwhile I start a gofundme page to send me to GDC and I raise $10, lmao.

I just don't get how some of these projects pull in so much money on claims they obviously can't back or produce. It's nuts. I wish I had some of that money, haha.
Click to expand...

The potato salad Kickstarter was the one that pushed me over the edge.
 
C

Copenap

Member
Krejlooc said:
You know what gets me about these overly ambitious kickstarter scams? How can these people raise like $500k and get away with nothing, meanwhile I start a gofundme page to send me to GDC and I raise $10, lmao.

I just don't get how some of these projects pull in so much money on claims they obviously can't back or produce. It's nuts. I wish I had some of that money, haha.
Click to expand...
It's easy, just pitch a game that does everything and set a stretch goal at let's say 100k that you will additionally go to GDC to do research to further expand the scope of the game. Done, now you're at GDC. Proceed to cancel the game afterwards, things just didn't work out.

Please nobody do that.
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
I think Kickstarter can be a very valuable and useful took for developers, hopefully these horror stories caise people to be a little bit more careful with which projects they gave money to. Don't fall for a few pretty concept pics and some nostalgic name drops. Each undeserving, eventual bust of a project just makes it that much harder for legitimate developers to use KS go get their games funded.
 
A

AtomskEater

Member
Out of seven projects, I've only seen the fruits of 2 of them so far (and one I donated a few bucks just because, so I won't count that either since I didn't hit a reward tier). I'm waiting on Shantae: Half Genie Hero, Cosmic Star Heroine, and SC2VN. I'm not really worried about the first two (and SC2VN is supposed to be free, just threw ten bucks at them to support 'em), and all three of them have had recent updates. There's just one that went through with half of the stuff they promised (soundtrack and other digital stuff), but not the actual game. I think all in all I didn't do too poorly, but it really sucks for projects that are complete failures or scams from the get-go. It kind of put a damper on my willingness to help fund projects.

Even if we remove people who make kickstarters with the intent to run with the money, there's a ton of folks with good intentions, lofty goals but little/no experience budgeting and actually making games, which leads to a huge mess.
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Diablohead said:
"Clang [Earned: $526,125]
-Note: Was officially canceled last year."

These feeling I have right now, I can't explain them.
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That's what happens when you feature Gabe Newell in your pitch video, the Half Life 3 curse has struck!
 
B

bonesmccoy

Banned
My only real KS worry was Banner Saga. They created an MP version before the SP, which understandably soured a lot of backers.

But wow did they come through in the end.

Drifter and River City Ransom are slowly climbing up my Level of Concern chart. But that's ok - they're more the 'hobby' projects that I backed, and I don't have any real attachment to them.
 
A

Asskicker064

Member
Artanisix said:
Hilariously awful.

The only game I've backed is Double Fine Adventures, and only because I love Tim Schafer. No way I could back a game that doesn't have serious credentials behind it.
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Careful with DoubleFine. Read up on Space Base DF-9. They don't mind abandoning projects.
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Krejlooc said:
Ah yeah, I see it makes more sense now

In general, I think if you have a discerning eye, it's pretty obvious which kickstarters will succeed in delivering their product and which will not.

If you have a developer with

A) No history
B) No major shipped products
C) promises from here to the moon
D) a ridiculously tiny budget (i.e. "we're going to out-do GTAV on 1/100th the budget!")
E) No functional prototype

they're not going to deliver, save your money.
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That sounds exactly like Peter Molyneux sans being famous :lol
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Nirolak, your listing there for my KS investigation is way out of date. Here's the up-to-date link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFW2sjShHriYRsyuVZx4Se8Qxjw38VJk4g-7cls8cpg/edit#gid=0

It's the progress status of every 75k+ Kickstarter up to June 2014.

I'd also note, H-Hour is sort of a weird case. The Kickstarter was not for a final game, it was for a demo... but the reward tiers were listed as including the final game. So it was like "I'll give you the full game even ... but I can't guarantee I'll make it, even if I get funded."
 
B

BreezyLimbo

Banned
Code Hero? Boy when I first heard of that I was on /v/ and everyone was making fun of it for being such a stupid idea. Cant believe it actually got funded! Such a ridiculous concept for the likes of KS
 
S

Skux

Member
Yeah, I'm not putting a single dollar more into Kickstarter. It's a glorified donation box which implies that you'll get something for your money.
 
A

AnthonypUK

Member
H-Hour isn't stopped but it is a fucking Con.

They stated this.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1687497632/h-hour-worlds-elite-0/posts/510373


Creator David Sears on June 15, 2013
Thanks you guys. We were happy to make this tier happen. Just a small show of faith from the community and we will make sure that the PS4 version of the game happens. All it will take is 500 SOCOM fans saying "yeah, I want that experience again" and H-Hour can deliver it.

Creator David Sears on June 15, 2013
Basically all the PLAYSTATION WARRIOR means is that if 500 people pledge to it, we at SOF Studios commit to securing the extra funding we will need to make a PS4 version of the game plus we will make sure any digital perks you already pledged for work with your PS4 version of the game.
Any tier we add to the campaign below the tier at which you've already pledged just gives you more stuff. In this case, it gives you a choice between a PS4 or a PC version of the game when we ship.

then they upped the 500 to 1000 when they hit it, now they are backing off the PS4 version saying you'll only get it if it does well on steam. they used the popularity of the PS4 and its history with socom to get to their goal, but it'll probably never see the light of day on that console.

Also i think Kotaku should have done more research on this, it was easy to find that H-Hour is still intending to deliver at least the PC version, in March.
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
What boggles my mind about so many of these projects is the ETA. Are there typos in there or what? How can a project that's funded in April have an estimated delivery date of May of the same year?! Even when you consider that you always need to add 1 year to the ETA, that's just ridiculous.

Czigga said:
Surprised tropes vs women isn't on the list
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She delivered a couple of videos and posted an update less than a month ago. Nice try.

Roven said:
Ghost Song
jk, take as much time as you need Jobbs, but can't wait for it :)
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He posted an update in late January 2015 too and there was a playable beta. I know you're joking but this thread is about obvious failures (or even scams), not games you're just impatient to get... :p
 
SystemUser

SystemUser

Member
I haven't heard of most of these. There are a few that were kickstarted for less than 10k. Realistically a summer intern will cost more than 10k when you consider overhead. Did people really think that you can make a game that cheap? You would think Kotaku would take that into account, but knowing Kotaku they will ignore it.
 
D

Digby

Neo Member
They forgot Roam. Now there's an entertaining story! First, half the team sued the other half, then they blamed another studio for copying them based on a game that was already released! All of this was played out in kickstarted updates that read like 8th grade drama.

Now there's just nothing. No updates in months, the game is 2 years in development and a year overdue. I'm not surprised...

As fun as it was to watch them trapeze from one stupid move to the next, it wasn't worth the amount I backed.
 
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